Lust

A lover who really understands you? Who really knows what you are thinking?

Michael had not felt such a surge of desire since he was sixteen years old: heedless and irresistible. With no discussion, they were pulled towards each other, to embrace, in the French sense of the term: to kiss.

Suddenly his copy jerked his head aside, lips pressed shut. He was frightened of AIDS. It was insulting, disappointing and childish.

The original Michael said, ‘We can hardly give each other something we don’t already have.’

And immediately there was a sense of parting, very slight like a tangerine being peeled. They were no longer exactly one. Their histories were now very slightly different.

‘That’s true,’ said the copy, trying to look amused. He was stiff and awkward, and gave Michael a peck on the lips. Did Michael feel a slight echo somewhere, like a double image? Did he not very slightly feel his own lips peck someone else’s, while they themselves were being kissed?

‘Sorry,’ the copy said and gave Michael a little cajoling shake. ‘Old habits die hard.’ He planted another chaste kiss on Michael’s cheek. Michael felt a falling away. He let his own penis drop, and looked down and saw his copy, thrashing uselessly away at himself.

That was always the pattern. He’d start out well, with a promising swelling, gallons of lubricant, and then the sudden irretrievable collapse.

‘We’re not going to be much use to each other are we?’ the original Michael said.

‘We could just cuddle,’ said his copy, hopefully. Michael had done enough cuddling. He looked at his own body and asked it: why? It’s a beautiful body, everything else about it works.

‘Shall we try again?’ Michael asked himself.

‘OK,’ chuckled the copy, weakly. It was lie, Michael knew. He was ashamed and now simply wanted to escape. This Michael was an amazingly disheartening sexual partner. But Michael was determined to persevere, for both their sakes.

It is a very strange thing to kiss yourself. There is no change of taste, and you know exactly what the tongue will do, how it will respond. I’d never realized, thought Michael, how useful my lips are. I hated my fat lips. But they’re great for kissing.

If only this Angel would move them.

Michael leaned back and looked at himself. He was surprised at how angry he felt. He had been moved, roused, and then let down. It felt like rejection, it felt personal. He made a soft fist and gave his partner a gentle, chiding thump. There was a distant disturbance in his own shoulder, as if someone had thrown a pebble into a pool some distance away.

‘Now you know how other people feel,’ said his copy, something dark and steely creeping into his own eyes.

‘Oh, Jesus, let’s sit down,’ said Michael. They sat next to each other on the bed. His partner looked defeated, mournful. Michael put an arm around his shoulder to comfort him, and they lay side by side, comrades rather than lovers.

Michael changed the subject. ‘You feel anything? From me?’

‘A kind of a buzz.’

‘It wouldn’t hurt you, would it?’

The copy scowled. ‘I don’t think I would know what it was.’

‘I just wanted to know if I could hurt people.’

The Angel sighed. ‘It would give them a turn if they showed up at your flat and met themselves by mistake.’

‘I’ll remember that.’

They turned and looked into each other’s faces, like brothers, like friends. They both had the same dark eyes, and his copy’s eyes were black and sad. Do I always look this mournful having sex? Isn’t sex supposed to be fun?

The Angel asked, ‘Do you have any idea how we got this way?’

The focus of Michael’s vision seemed to shift and he saw something in the face, and jumped up, and scuttled away. ‘Jesus Christ, you look just like Dad!’

Michael turned back around, and the bed was empty. Even the baggy Y-fronts had gone.

Can Angels do work? (#ulink_68b6d4f8-f95e-5c43-8896-007df9514b51)

Back at work, Ebru asked Michael, ‘Where do you go in the afternoons?’

Her smile was rueful, teasing, an evident mise-en-scène. Because her eyes were saying: you’re supposed to be running this place.

‘Lunch,’ replied Michael. ‘Why, was there a problem?’

She was leaning as if relaxed across her desk. She sprawled. It was a difficult posture to read, because it seemed friendly but was also disrespectful.

Her voice drawled; she sounded sleepy. ‘The University called. You were supposed to be teaching a course today.’

Oh shit, oh no, of course, it’s Thursday.

Ebru looked bored. ‘What could I do? I told them you would call when you got back.’

‘Oh, Jees, was it Professor Dennis? Oh darn. OK. I’ll give her a call.’

‘Could you leave me with your number please where you will be when you go out?’

‘Yeah sure. I’ll get a mobile, so you can call me.’

Michael jerked forward, wanting to escape. Ebru had more to say. ‘The grant application forms have been on your desk for a week. I just wanted to make sure you knew they were there.’ Michael had to apply for funds for the next stage of research; they were to teach the chicks tasks such as pushing buttons for food. The aim was to keep the facility going, so the University could rent it out for other projects. The aim was that Michael would eventually make himself some kind of Director.

‘Right, yes. I’ve been meaning to get to that.’

‘Emilio was saying that he has not been told the file names for the control group slides. This means he has fallen behind on his data entry and filing.’

‘Sorry,’ said Michael. ‘A lot on my plate.’

Ebru dismissed it, as if sleepy. ‘I wasn’t chasing you.’

Oh yes you were.

Alone in his windowless office, Michael told himself: you have been neglecting your job.

It had been just over three weeks since the episodes began. There had been five afternoons at the Chez Nous, four with Johnny and one with himself. They had moved from late winter into spring. How did he think people would not notice?

There was a Fridge full of frozen, unfiled slides. How could he ask people to work for him? People who were on short-term contracts, which meant they could not get a mortgage. How could he ask them to work punctiliously, perfectly, as science demanded?

And, oh shit, he was also supposed to be writing a phase paper on the difference between Windows NT and Unix for his MSc in Computer Science. It was due next Monday. He’d done nothing about it.

Michael hung his head, and then lowered it into his hands from shame.